US drone kills 7 people in North Waziristan

An American spy aircraft fired a missiles in Pakistan North Waziristan tribal region early Wednesday and killed seven people, security officials said.

Two missiles were fired at a house in Chashma village of Miranshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan, killing seven people. Four people died at the scene and three people died in hospital and wounds.

The injured were taken to a local hospital.

There was no information about the identity of the victims.

The residents said that had seen several drones flying over the area and also after the attack.

The Wednesday’s strike occurred days after President Barrack Obama defended the CIA-controlled drone campaign despite strong criticism by rights groups.

Pakistan publicly condemns the US drone strikes and calls for a halt however Americans have rejected any change in the policy.

US Secretary of State John Kerry Sunday defended the drone strikes during his visit to Ethiopia on Sunday.

“The only people we fire at are confirmed terror targets, at the highest level. We don’t just fire a drone at somebody we think is a terrorist,” Mr. Kerry said, adding that strikes are ruled out if there could be collateral damage.

The United States was recently identified in a U.N.’s report as the world’s No. 1 user of targeted killings, mainly because of its reliance on drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The report by Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions Wednesday, called the drone attacks part of a “strongly asserted but ill-defined license to kill without accountability” and warned that they are contributing to an erosion of longstanding international rules governing warfare.

It urged states to identify publicly rules of international law believed to provide a basis for any attempted targeted killings as well as the rationale for deciding to kill instead of capture individuals.

Pakistan says that the US drones kill innocent people and that they are against the sovereignty of Pakistan and counterproductive.